She crossed her arms over her chest and thought about it, and for a moment, I was sure she would refuse to answer. But then she met my gaze with a shrug, understating how carefully she’d obviously considered the question. “Because it’s right there for the taking. A lie, you have to think about, but the truth is… The truth is easy.”

“No, it isn’t. In my experience the truth is usually the hardest thing in the world to say. Or to hear.” Or to see, lying on a bed, unmoving, staring at the ceiling with no sign of life.

Her mouth thinned into an angry line. “You don’t want an answer, you want a fight. You’re going to come up with an argument for anything I say, aren’t you? Why does it even matter why I like the truth?”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said, my lie as steady as her anger. And I should have left it at that, but I couldn’t help myself. Her steel spine and the occasional glimpse of vulnerability reminded me of Steven, and the bitter truth surged through me, scorching a trail through my veins. The memories. The loss. The rage still burning inside me.

Remembering should have made it easier for me to do what had to be done. But it didn’t. Kori’s mouth and her fiery grit—so different from Steven’s quiet determination—made her real. They made it harder to picture myself destroying Kenley Daniels, if that meant destroying Kori in the process.

“Why you like the truth doesn’t matter to me, but it should matter to you,” I insisted, still trying to sort through it all in my head. “You can’t recruit a man you don’t know, and how are you supposed to get to know me in a matter of days when you don’t even know yourself, after a lifetime in your own skin?”

“I know myself,” she snapped. “And I’m starting to get a pretty damn clear picture of you, too.”

“That first part, maybe.” But she didn’t know me. She couldn’t. And if I was wrong about that, I was as good as dead. “So tell me why you like the truth. The real answer.” I looked right into her eyes, practically daring her.

Kori glared at me, and I watched her, obviously pissing her off with nothing more than the fact that I wasn’t pissed off. “The truth is real, even when nothing else is,” she said at last, whispering so no one else would hear, dragging the words out like she didn’t want to let them go. “It’s steady. It doesn’t change depending on the circumstances. It never changes. The truth will look the same in the dark as it does in broad daylight, and it quacks like the duck it is. That’s a relief—knowing what you’re getting. I like it.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. She was fascinating, and she obviously had no idea. Not that it mattered. I couldn’t let myself want her, and I certainly couldn’t have her; she’d want to kill me once I’d killed her sister. And even if by some miracle she could forgive that—though she wouldn’t—she liked the truth, and my entire existence was one big lie. The reasons she had to hate me were too numerous to count and too huge to see around.

“Syndicate life must be hard for someone like you,” I said, trying to drag my thoughts back on target, which proved almost as difficult as dragging my gaze away from her eyes. From her lips, half open, like she’d forgotten what she wanted to say. I wanted to taste her, right there on the sidewalk. Just once. Just for a second. And for one terrifying moment I was suddenly certain I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else until I’d done exactly that.

Then her frown grew skeptical, like she thought I was baiting her again. “Life is hard, period. Dying when there’s another option is easy, even when it hurts, but that’s the coward’s way out. Sometimes it takes guts to live, and that’s the fucking truth.”

“So it is.” I dropped my soiled napkin into the trash can a few feet away, and her brown-eyed gaze followed me. “Show me something true, Kori. Show me something real about the syndicate, even if it hurts to see.”

Something horrible. I needed to see or hear something so terrible it would drive all other thought from my head and purge the sudden need tugging on my fingers like strings on a puppet. The need to touch her.

“You sure? I could show you lots of pretty lies,” she offered, her voice delicate. Brittle. “You’d know they were lies, but they’d make you smile.” I just watched her, denying myself what I had no right to want, and finally she nodded. “The awful truth it is. Let’s go.”

I followed her into the coffee shop without a word, and Kori pulled me into the ladies’ restroom, then flipped the light switch by the door. Darkness descended and I exhaled slowly, enjoying the sudden calm it brought, like the start of an evening, after a glass of good wine. Everything seemed a little easier in the dark. Even with a strip of light shining from under the door and an emergency light flashing in the far corner.

Something touched my chest, and the breath I sucked in was loud in the silence. Her hand slid along my stomach, slowly, lightly, and I held my breath, wishing for more. I hated myself for that, but denying it would be pointless. I wanted greater pressure from her fingers. Longer contact.

I wanted to pull my shirt off so her hand would trail over my skin and I would know, just once, what her touch felt like.

Her hand kept moving until it reached my arm, then it trailed lower and her fingers intertwined with mine. Her skin was warm and dry, her fingers soft but strong. I wondered if the rest of her could possibly feel so smooth.